osmundaceae

The species further illustrates the long established cosmopolitan distribution of members of the Osmundaceae.

It is also a rarity in that it appears to be a species of hybrid origin within the Osmundaceae.

Leptopteris moorei is a fern in the Osmundaceae family.

Osmundites is an extinct genus of the familia Osmundaceae.

Like other species in the family Osmundaceae, it grows a very large rhizome, with persistent stipe bases from previous years.

The following phylogram shows a likely relationship between the Osmundaceae genera and subtaxa:

Osmunda is a genus of primarily temperate-zone ferns of family Osmundaceae.

Osmundastrum cinnamomeum, the cinnamon fern, is a species of leptosporangiate fern in the family Osmundaceae.

Osmunda wehrii is an extinct species of fern in the modern Osmundaceae family genus Osmunda.

A new Todea from New Guinea, with remarks on the generic delimitation of recent Osmundaceae.

Osmunda (Osmundaceae) from the Triassic of Antarctica: An example of evolutionary stasis.

Todea from the Lower Cretaceous of western North America: implications for the phylogeny, systematics, and evolution of modern Osmundaceae.

Smaller fossils on Fremouw Peak include cycads, horsetails, seed ferns, Osmundaceae ferns, and even fungi.

Species in the genus Todea, as Leptopteris, are distinct from other in Osmundaceae in that sporangia are born on laminar pinnules.

However, recent genetic and morphological evidence (Metzgar et al. 2008; Jud et al. 2008) clearly demonstrate that the cinnamon fern is a sister species to the entire rest of the living Osmundaceae.

Cladistically, it is either necessary then to include all species of the Osmundaceae, including Todea and Leptopteris in the genus Osmunda, or else it is necessary to segregate the genus Osmundastrum.

Modern research supports older ideas based on morphology that the Osmundaceae diverged early in the evolutionary history of the leptosporangiate ferns; in certain ways this family is intermediate between the eusporangiate ferns and the leptosporangiate ferns.

The fossils have distinct stipular frond bases characteristic of the family Osmundaceae, while the interior of the fronds show distinct long fibers in the frond bases are both representative of the modern genus Osmunda.